Starting to plan this walk, I need to do a few things. Some idea of route will help, including a start and end point.
Commencing at the end, the plan is to return to my birthplace. Brighton Maternity Hospital is no longer there; I could (and probably will) peer at the office block on the site, but that would be a bathetic end. I have no memory of our first home in Patcham. Sooo – I’m thinking of the end of Brighton Pier as the destination point. From there (on a clear day) I can look back at everywhere I’ve lived, worked, loved, drank, and just existed in the Brighton/Hove/Portslade locations that mean something to me.
That settled, a starting point is needed (and I suppose technically this is more urgent). My own front door would make sense, but I’m thinking of the end of Southport Pier. I’ll then walk to Ormskirk and onwards, probably joining the Trans Pennine Trail. Unfortunately this isn’t a Pennine Trail reserved for Trans people – it’s a coast-to-coast walking/cycling/ostrich-powered-rickshaw route, but it will get me to a point where I can cross the Mersey and veer south. (A massive detour to Sheffield, where some friends may give me a cup of tea, would be possible on this waymarked trail.)
These two points give the thing some symmetry – pier to pier, sea to sea, resort to resort…
Walking Home to 50 